"The key left by the Queen?"
Agatha's expression changed instantly and she stared into Archon Winston's eyes.
However, the latter was even more surprised than her. Winston's eyes were full of astonishment: "You don't know? Then how did you get in here?"
Agatha's expression became serious. She realized that the situation seemed different from what she had expected. When she realized that she could "enter" the stone wall, she thought that Governor Winston who entered here earlier was the same as herself, but now it seemed that this Governor used other means.
He holds more secrets than he expected.
"I have my own way," Agatha said slowly, with a sense of pressure in her tone unconsciously. "You just mentioned the key left by the Queen. What on earth is that?"
Winston looked at the gatekeeper in front of him suspiciously, but after a moment's hesitation, he sighed with relief and reached into his chest pocket.
"That's fine. Now that it has come to this, there is no need to keep it secret anymore."
He pulled out a small object from his pocket. It was a brass key with an ornate pattern. The handle looked like a horizontal "8" or the infinity symbol in mathematics, but the head did not have the common tooth structure of an ordinary key, but a round rod with grooves.
Agatha looked at the thing in the other person's hand curiously, and suddenly felt that it was not like a key to open the door, but... it was very much like the kind of thing used to wind up dolls or other clockwork mechanisms.
"The clockwork key?" She asked subconsciously, "You mean, this is something left by Queen Lenora? Why is it in the hands of an archon like you?"
"This key has been passed down from generation to generation by the Archons. It is a gift from the Queen to the rebels, and... a curse," Winston said, twisting his lips and revealing a bitter smile that even contained fear. "From the moment the first Archon took over the key, the shadow behind the Frost City-State has been looming over our heads, Madam Gatekeeper."
Agatha did not interrupt the middle-aged man who looked very weak. She waited patiently for him to finish speaking before she spoke calmly, "You actually know the true situation of the Boiling Gold Mine, right?"
“If you mean the Boiling Gold Mine showed signs of drying up as early as the Queen’s era… Yes, I know,” Winston sighed softly and said frankly, “I’m sorry, I knew from the beginning what the door you found was about, but I thought there was still time to get everything back on track before the situation got worse. In that case, what you found would be just an abandoned mine tunnel. Frostbite… is still the prosperous Frostbite.”
"I need an explanation, Archon," Agatha said with a serious expression and a somewhat cold tone, "The Boiling Gold Mine had already dried up during the Queen's time. So what exactly have we dug out and transported out over the past few decades? And what is the connection between the vision in the city-state today, the actions of those cultists, and the drying up of the mine?"
"Boiling gold, it's still boiling gold, Madam Gatekeeper. What we dug out is boiling gold, and what we transported out is still boiling gold. It's absolutely true. Winston raised his head with an expression that he didn't know whether to cry or laugh. "It's not pollution. We have tested it, and we also tested it during the Queen's era. If something looks like boiling gold, it is boiling gold when used, and the effects and products left behind are no different from normal boiling gold - then there is no doubt that it should be boiling gold."
"Is that really boiling gold?!" Agatha's eyes widened suddenly. This answer was particularly hard for her to imagine. "But the mine was exhausted decades ago. Now the ore in the mine tunnel..."
"This is the most terrifying and weird thing, isn't it?" Winston smiled bitterly. "The ore veins are exhausted, but soon new ores will fill up some unnoticed corners. It's as if there is a false 'Frost City-State' parallel to the real world, which continuously injects ores into the real world. Or... when the mine goes deep into the ground, we have been mining minerals from a mirror world, and those phantom-like things that defy common sense... after being mined, no matter how we test them, they are actually real."
Agatha listened to all this with a grim expression. These unbelievable truths shocked her mind, which had been often confused during this period. But in the end, she remained calm and spoke softly: "Mirror Frost - Archon, you are right. There is indeed a Mirror Frost. The fog that now covers the city-state and the counterfeits that keep appearing in the fog all ran out of that mirror city. This mirror city-state is gradually eroding and replacing our real world."
Winston's expression changed slightly, and then he was silent for more than ten seconds, and finally let out a long sigh: "Ah, it seems that this is the price of the boiling gold."
"Price? You've put it too lightly. It's not just you and me who are paying the price now, but also the people of the entire city-state. Most of them don't even know what's happening..."
"But most of them are benefiting from the boiling gold trade. In this extremely cold city, it is the boiling gold that allows everyone in the city to have warm homes and sufficient food, allowing us to maintain a relatively prosperous level after the collapse of the sea cliff, Madam Gatekeeper."
Winston paused for a few seconds and then waved his hand.
"You should know that I have never been extravagant, never bought property, and never left any private wealth - I don't even have any heirs. Madam, everything I do is not for personal gain."
Agatha looked into the Archon's eyes, but deep in those eyes, she saw only fatigue.
"They don't have a choice..."
She spoke softly as if she were talking to herself.
"No one has a choice," Winston shook his head. "I know what you mean. This path and the price we have to pay today were not chosen by the citizens of the city-state themselves - but this was not my choice either. No one has any other way to go.
"The city-state is only this big. There is no other frost in the vast sea for us to stand on. We need food, fuel, houses and clean fresh water. We need boiling gold - even if it comes from the strange shadow world. Without boiling gold, a quarter of the people in the city-state will die in just one winter, and the rest will gradually return to the dark city-state era before the great industrial development in a few years, and continue to lose a quarter or even more of the population...
"Madam Gatekeeper, take a break. You are as tired as I am. Perhaps we should now accept the fact that the city-state is a steam locomotive heading towards the abyss, with everyone sitting on it. The only difference between the protectors of the city-state and ordinary people is that ordinary people eat and drink with their eyes blindfolded, while we... just keep our eyes open."
Agatha ignored Winston's self-destructive remarks. She just stood in the darkness without saying a word, feeling the unbearable cold coming from all around again, and feeling the blood in her veins gradually cooling down.
Then she broke the silence: "Some people made other choices."
"...Yes, there was one. The Frost People once called her the 'Queen', while the history books called her the 'Mad Queen.'" Winston laughed, not knowing whether he was laughing at the queen or at himself. "A great mortal who even wanted to fight against this sea, against the horror in the deepest part of the sea."
"The Abyss Project..." Agatha said softly. The various clues she had obtained in the past finally gathered together in her mind bit by bit, forming a clear thread. "So, the Abyss Project is not just a simple exploration plan in the records... The Queen wants to uncover the secrets deep inside the city-state?!"
“We don’t know why she thought that the boiling gold that kept appearing in the mine was related to the ‘deep sea,’ but apparently she found the right direction. The out-of-control of the Abyss Project and the terrible fate she faced later proved that she had touched the real source. This is the most ironic thing about our world,” Winston changed his posture beside the tree stump. He raised his head and looked at the endless chaos and creeping shadows above. He spoke slowly, “The truth points to madness, madness points to failure, and every step you take towards your goal is moving towards the abyss.
Winston sighed.
"She wants to find out the truth about the boiling gold mine, to solve the hidden dangers behind the city-state, and to fight the sea itself with her own wisdom and strength... This is good, but the facts prove that
, she just consumed her own destiny in advance."
"So, you, the 'successors', decided not to follow her path - you pretended to be blindfolded like everyone else and rushed into the abyss with this car, and the queen who once tried to step on the brakes or change the track was eventually defined in the history books as a madman bewitched by the warp."
"An old saying of Frostbite: the dead must make way for the living." Winston slowly turned his eyes and looked into Agatha's eyes. "A once great ruler, if her stability can help Frostbite quickly restore stability after the turmoil, then she probably won't mind."
Agatha wanted to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.
After a long time, she could only shake her head gently.
"How did the key...come into the hands of the first Archon?"